The indictment that was unsealed yesterday in United States of America v. Donald J. Trump uses the phrase "knowingly false" 33 times, referring to the former president's claims about the massive fraud that supposedly denied him his rightful victory in the 2020 election. There is a very good reason why that characterization is sprinkled throughout the indictment: All of the charges—which include conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiring to deprive Americans of their voting rights—depend on the assumption that Trump did not really think he had won reelection.
Nearly three years after Trump began complaining about "a major fraud" that supposedly had delivered a phony victory to Joe Biden, however, it remains unclear whether he honestly believed the nonsense he was spouting. The indictment itself includes evidence pointing in both directions.
